Chandigarh, July 2:- Haryana Health Minister Aarti Singh Rao has called upon the people of the state to become Nikshay Mittra and help make Haryana TB free. She has also appealed to use the 'TB Mukt Bharat App' on a large scale.
The Health Minister said here today that Haryana has achieved another major achievement towards realizing the Prime Minister's dream of a 'TB Mukt Bharat'. He said that the Health Department has issued comprehensive guidelines to increase the use of the newly launched 'TB Mukt Bharat App' on a large scale in all 22 districts of the state. Under the National TB Eradication Programme, this app is working to connect patients, Nikshay Mittras, volunteers and health officials on a common digital platform.
Aarti Singh Rao said that the total number of registrations on this app has reached 32,643 so far, making Haryana second in the country in terms of total registrations. On this app, 22,266 volunteers from Haryana have registered to distribute food baskets (Poshan Kit) and provide psycho-social support to patients, while 1,997 new Nikshya Mitras have registered to adopt patients and provide them with nutritional and diagnostic support. The Health Minister, while highlighting the features of the app, said that this app includes an artificial intelligence based chatbot named 'Khushi e-Sangini', which is available in 12 languages. This chatbot, apart from providing information on TB symptoms and government schemes, also helps users find the nearest testing center through GPS. The app is completely patient-centric, where TB patients can log in using their 'Nikshay ID' and view their personal treatment chart. Along with this, it has a special facility of daily medicine reminder (alarm) to motivate patients to take medicine on time so that their treatment is not missed.
Giving information about this digital ecosystem, Aarti Singh Rao said that corporate houses, NGOs and common citizens can also easily register as Nikshay Mitra through this app and provide nutritional and diagnostic support to patients. Volunteers can take the responsibility of physical distribution of food packets and upload geo-tagged (location information) and time-stamped (time information) images at the time of delivery to maintain complete transparency. Apart from this, the general public can also use this app to know the symptoms of TB, prevention methods and dispel the myths associated with this disease.
Dr. R. S. Dhillon, Mission Director of National Health Mission Haryana, said that health workers working at the ground level such as HTS, STLS, TBHV and CHO have been specially trained so that they can help patients set their daily medicine reminders by downloading the app in their mobile phones.
Dr. Dhillon has appealed to the general public to definitely download the 'TB Mukt Bharat App' from the Google Play Store. He has called upon the people to remain aware of the symptoms of TB and make their valuable contribution in this social work by becoming Nikshay Mitra, so that Haryana remains a pioneer on the path of becoming the first TB free state of the country through active public participation.